Senior Environmental Specialist

The Environment, Natural Resources and Blue Economy (ENB) Global Practice has five key business lines consisting of Lending and non-lending services in (1) Forests, Watersheds and Sustainable Landscapes (‘Green Business line’); (2) Marine, Coastal, Aquatic Resources and Ocean Health (‘Blue Economy Business line’); (3) Pollution Management and Environmental Health (‘Pollution Management Business line’); (4) Environmental Economics, Policies and Institutions Business line, and (5) Safeguards/ Environmental Risk Management Business line:  delivery of effective environmental risk management and sustainability by managing risk at the project level and creating opportunities to advance sustainable development. This includes provision of high-quality and timely safeguards services across the Bank, including current safeguards policies and the effective implementation of the new Environment and Social Framework (ESF) that was rolled out on October 1, 2018

The ENB Global Practice in Sub Saharan Africa consists of four units: Two in West and Central Africa Region, and two in East and Southern Africa Region. SAWE4 covers parts of West and North. The unit manages operations in a variety of areas such as natural resources management, coastal zone management, forestry, pollution, climate change, landscape, and terrestrial and marine natural resources. In addition, the unit, like other ENR GP units provides environmental safeguards and ESF services across all sectors and projects.

Tasks:

• Facilitate, engage in, and shape policy dialogues, identifying clients’ priority needs for lending, analytical support, and advisory services in relation to natural resource economy, including fisheries and forestry.
• Supervise the implementation, in collaboration with Task Teams, of investment projects in Ghana’s Environment and NRM portfolio including land degradation and restoration, forest management, community strengthening in natural resource management, rural development, landscapes management, climate change and NRM.
• Provide strategic support to team leaders of projects on safeguards and ESF both during preparation and implementation and engage with client on upstream dialogue to build client capacity.
• Identify and participate in knowledge exchange opportunities focusing on above mentioned issues between Ghana and other countries in the Africa region.
• Lead and/or assist the teams working in the landscape portfolio in Ghana maximize the value of blue economy, sustainable landscapes, biodiversity, and natural resources.
• Review and provide advice for operational and analytical work on blue economy, fisheries, landscapes, NRM and the links to poverty reduction and development in Ghana.
• Contribute to ENB and corporate tasks related to blue economy, fisheries, forests, Climate Change, Biodiversity and Nature-based tourism.
• Participate in project implementation support missions, elaborate mission aide-memoires, ISRs and ensuring timely execution of mission’ action plans.
• Contribute to NRM portfolio related business and pipeline development (e.g. policy lending, program for results, prevention of conflict and resilience investment program, regional integration programs, etc.), as well as donor dialogue, private sector engagement and identification of additional funding opportunities.
• Promote, through ongoing and future portfolio, community-based approaches, and planning processes.

Selection Criteria

• A Master’s degree or above in environment and/or natural resource management, watershed management, sustainable landscape management, forestry, agronomy, climate change, marine and coastal zone management, fisheries, economics, environmental policy or geography, or similar relevant disciplines.
• A minimum of 8 years of full-time relevant professional experience in the environment/natural resources management field. 
• Deep knowledge of natural resources sectors, policies and institutions, including forestry, Sustainable land management, and/or fisheries. 
• Field experience in project preparation and supervision.
• Demonstrated ability to lead high-quality analytical tasks that include environment related data and information, linking those analyses to country development priorities and economic impacts. 
• Minimum of 8 years of professional experience in the environment and natural resources management sector, including proven experience in watershed management, integrated landscapes, environment, fisheries, marine and coastal zone management, forestry, dryland development, climate change, and biodiversity.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English
• Familiarity with the World Bank Group’s organizational structure, processes, guidelines and procedures will be desirable.
• Strong client orientation with the ability to build an understanding with implementing agency counterparts on the value-added of Bank products
• Good team player who can work as a member of multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural team, ability to function independently, with a degree of motivation, flexibility and reliability.
• A drive for results while working with limited supervision and under tight timelines;
• Understanding of the programmatic approach to forests, climate change and natural resources management (in the context of multi-sectoral approaches and the national development plan and using various sources of financing.